What’s being billed as “the McDonald’s of the future” is coming to southeast Iowa.

A new restaurant in the global chain will hold its grand opening Friday in Ottumwa featuring several upgrades in technology. Donna Mann, who owns the Ottumwa franchise and seven other locations in Iowa, says the new style of restaurant is just the third to open in the state.

“We were going to be the first and our construction didn’t go as fast as we had hoped so now we’re the third,” Mann says. “Soon, in the Midwest region, which is Minneapolis, Iowa, Wisconsin and some other states, they will soon have 10 or 12 of these. By about 2020,

New Ottumwa McDonald’s.

every McDonald’s restaurant will be upgraded in some way.” Mann says the tech upgrades at the restaurant include several large touch-screens that resemble giant smartphones.

“We’ve added kiosks for those who would like to place their own order,” Mann says. “The younger generations especially likes to play with that. We will still have crew at the counter in case people prefer to place an order that way.”

After placing a dine-in order, you’ll get a number on a plastic tent that has blue-tooth technology embedded, so the server will know exactly where you’re seated. A recent survey released by Junior Achievement of Central Iowa found 77 percent of parents surveyed were concerned about their kids being able to find decent jobs due to so much automation.

Mann responded to the survey, saying the new kiosks may actually result in the restaurant needing more employees. “This is a convenience for our customers,” she says. “They don’t have to use that if they don’t like. But, by adding these, we’ve added four new touch-points for people to order, so more people can order at the same time. That creates more pressure in the kitchen area, so we need more people working in the kitchen area. We’re also offering table service where we will deliver your meal to your table. That requires more personnel.”

The new restaurant in Ottumwa replaces a McDonald’s location that was built in the late 1970s. It opens at 5 A.M. Friday with special drawings and other festivities.

More than 150 restaurants across the state are involved in an upcoming event organized by the Iowa Tourism Office.

The inaugural Main Street Iowa Restaurant Week begins Friday and includes eateries in 16 towns and cities. Shawna Lode, with the Iowa Tourism Office, says each community will offer special menus and rewards.

“We want to give Iowans and our visitors a chance to get out and explore the restaurants and foods that are unique to Iowa,” Lode said. The event runs 10 days — through September 24.

“We wanted to give people an opportunity to visit as many restaurants as the can,” Lode said. “We know when people travel they want to eat where the locals eat.” The communities involved in Main Street Iowa Restaurant Week include Avoca, Burlington, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Fort Madison, Greenfield, Hampton, Marshalltown, Mount Pleasant, Mount Vernon, Osceola, Oskaloosa, Spencer, Waterloo, West Branch, West Des Moines and Woodbine.

Organizers of the world’s largest bacon festival, held every winter here in Iowa, are launching the first-ever bacon festival in Japan — in Iowa’s sister state of Yamanashi.

Brooks Reynolds, chairman of the Iowa Bacon Board and co-founder of the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, says they’re donating at least one-thousand pounds of Iowa bacon to jump-start the Japanese event in November.

“Twenty percent of Iowa pork is already sent to Japan. They’re one of the largest importers of Iowa pork,” Reynolds says. “We just thought why not try to do what we do here in Iowa — over there?”

The Japan Bacon Festival will take place in Kofu, the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture on November 3rd. Those who attend will get to sample Japanese and American-style bacon. There will also be bacon-inspired contests, beverages, music, a chef exchange, and more.

Reynolds says, “We’re going to have 20 different food vendors using bacon in various ways, whether it’s bacon yakitori, bacon ramen, or fun, interesting bacon sushi items.” The Iowans have launched successful bacon festivals elsewhere, including in Keystone, Colorado and in Reykjavik, Iceland. Reynolds says the large shipment of bacon to Japan will arrive with specialty cookbooks to assure the delicacy is prepared just right, a combination of crispy with a little bit of chewy.

“I’m going over for 11 days so I’ll be in the Kofu area for a week, working with the various food vendors,” Reynolds says. “If they have any questions or need any help, hopefully I’ll teach them the right way to cook quality bacon.” The popularity of the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, held in downtown Des Moines, has continued growing exponentially year after year.

“We started in 2008 with 200 people and for the first six years, we doubled, going from 200 to 400 to 800 to 2,000 to 4,000 to 8,000,” Reynolds says. “This year was our 10th year and we had 11,000 people from 40 states and seven different countries attend the largest bacon festival in the world.” Next year’s bacon festival is set for February 17th at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.

The Japan Bacon Festival was inspired by a historic humanitarian effort in 1959. Japan was devastated by two huge typhoons and Iowa’s response was to airlift 36 breeding hogs and ship 100,000 bushels of corn to help with the recovery.

The so-called Iowa Hog Lift is credited with setting the stage for Iowa and Yamanashi becoming Sister States by formal agreement, opening markets in Japan for U.S. goods and services, and initiating agricultural cooperative programs between the two nations.

The Ankeny-based Casey’s convenience story chain reported a drop in earnings in the first quarter of this year compared to last year of 24 cents.

CEO Terry Handley told investors during a conference call that changes to the company’s stock incentive program and an increases in the tax rates in Illinois played a big part in the drop. Handley the economy also played a role — as the sales of prepared food items like pizza were up only 3.7%. That was well below the 5 to 7% increase they had hoped to see.

“We believe this pressure is related to the agricultural economy in our market area and the continued spread between food at home and food away,” Handley says. “Another contributing factor was the excessive heat during the month of July.” Chief financial officer Bill Walljasper says there was a definite impact from the warm weather.

“July actually was a negative customer count for us. Typically that is a very high customer count month for us,” Walljasper says. “That kind of permeated across all lines of our categories, especially in the prepared food categories. We just didn’t have people getting out and about. Certainly that was affected, especially in the pizza line of our business.” Handley says they are taking steps to adjust to the economic pressures.

“In the current environment we recognize that our customer has become more value conscious,” according to Handley. “In light of this, we will build upon our existing value-added offerings in this category along with new seasonal items that we anticipate will help lift the overall prepared food sales.” Handley says gas sales continued to benefit from low prices and were up 1.7% at existing stores in the quarter. The company made a little more than 19 cents on each of the 565 million gallons of gas it sold.

Overall, the company reported that the earnings per share in the first quarter were $1.46 in the first quarter, compared to $1.70 for the same quarter last year.

Meals from the Heartland is looking for some more volunteers for its 10th annual event next week where millions of meals are packaged.

Executive Director Susan Bunz says it’s easy to volunteer. “You can go to our website at www.mealsfromtheheartland.org. It will provide you with some options on packaging times, so you can pick the one that works best for you. It’s a two hour shift,” according to Bunz.

She says they also have some spots that require a little more physical labor. “If somebody is interested in getting a little workout, they can be a bucket brigader and help replenish the soy and rice as people are packaging,” Bunz says. “Otherwise, it’s just a two-hour shift and you’ll feed about 400 people in the time person is there packaging.”

The work takes place next Wednesday (Aug 30) through Saturday in Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines. Bunz says the packaging job involves pouring the ingredients through a funnel into a bag.

“You fill it with rice, soy, a scoop of vitamins and a scoop of vegetables. The bag is weighed and sealed and goes on a grid until the grid is full — and then it’s boxed,” Bunz says. She says they’ve had people as young as five working and as old as 99. Some of the meals stay in Iowa, while others travel out of the country.

“Through our Unite to Feed Program our meals are combined with some other ingredients and made available as emergency feed relief,” Bunz explains. “And then the remainder of the meals go internationally to a feeding program that provides meals to children in both schools and orphanages around the world.” Bunz says volunteers know the work they do will have an impact.

“Many of them are being loaded into semis right as they’re finished and boxed right on site down at Hy-Vee Hall. So, they’ll go out the back dock and they’ll get load onto a semi and get shipped out to the places where they are going to make a difference,” Bunz says.

Two-hour packaging shifts are available from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Wednesday through Friday of next week. And then from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Governor Kim Reynolds predicts there’ll be expanded ag trade to China in the years ahead, but Reynolds said this morning that Iowa exporters need to monitor how North Korea’s nuclear ambitions could impact trade with China.

“They are walking a fine line in China,” Reynolds said during an interview with Radio Iowa and The Cedar Rapids Gazette. “They’re sending troops to the border. They don’t want North Korea to have nuclear capability either, so they’re monitoring that.”

China also worries that if North Korea’s dictatorship topples, there would be a unified Korea under a democratic system of government. Reynolds returned to Iowa this past Friday after a trade mission to China that was solely focused on expanding shipments of Iowa agricultural products to China. Former Governor Terry Branstad hosted an event for the Iowa trade delegation at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Reynolds was able to meet privately with Ambassador Branstad, too.

“I have complete confidence in him,” Reynolds said. “It’s a tough assignment. He recognizes that. It started with sending arms to Taiwan and some of the legislation that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., so he is continuing to balance the needs of the United States and working with China.”

This weekend President Trump tweeted that China had done “nothing” but talk about dealing with North Korea’s nuclear threat. Trump made the U.S. trade imbalance with China a major 2016 campaign issue and the president said in his Saturday tweet that “foolish past leaders” of the U.S. have allowed the Chinese “to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade.”

Governor Reynolds said she saw signs of progress on trade during her trip, including the Chinese decision to allow four new varieties of genetically-modified corn and soybeans into China.

“But we said we need to complete the other four. It was really important that we have some consistency, predictability, timeliness in the approval process and we said both on our part as well as their part because that’s what’s going to allow us to feed a growing world population,” Reynolds said. “They’re estimating that by 2020 they’ll have another 300-400 million Chinese that will move into the middle class.”

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey was also part of the Iowa delegation that went to China this month. He said there’s “no way” to predict how the North Korean situation will “play out.”
“We’re hopeful that the North Korea tensions can get worked out and trade continues to improve with China,” Northey said during an interview after a meeting with the governor and the rest of the State Executive Council.

A group of Chinese students who’re in Iowa and plan to attend high schools and colleges here posed for pictures with Reynolds and Northey this morning in the governor’s office.

The demand for food assistance has pushed the state’s largest food bank past a “milestone.”

“We now average a distribution of one million pounds of food a month, but even a million pounds is not enough,” says Danny Akright of the Food Bank of Iowa.

The organization distributes food to about 500 organizations in 55 counties and it has set a new goal. The Food Bank of Iowa wants to double its output and distribute two million pounds of food per month.

“Throughout Iowa, roughly 375,000 Iowans struggle with food insecurity — the lack of access at all times to enough food to lead an active, healthy life,” Akright says. “More than 121,000 of these Iowans are kids.”

The Food Bank of Iowa was established in 1982, during the Farm Crisis. According to its website, the organization has distributed more than 163 million meals in the past 35 years. The Food Bank of Iowa works with food pantries and homeless shelters as well as veterans organizations and schools.

“Food insecurity is pervasive throughout our country, affecting every single county in our state and every other,” Alright says. “It strikes big cities, small towns, suburbs, everywhere. It burdens parents, grandparents, kids, veterans, those struggling with serious health issues.”

The most recent figures from the USDA indicate about 13 percent of Iowans regularly skip meals because they do not have enough food. The Food Bank of Iowa serves counties in northwest, north central, central, southern and southeast Iowa.

The trial in the defamation lawsuit filed by Beef Products Incorporated seeking $1.9 billion from ABC Broadcasting and reporter Jim Avila came to an abrupt halt this morning with a settlement.

Judge Cheryle Gering began the day by informing the jury they were done with their work.

“The case is settled. As permitted under the law of South Dakota, neither the court, the jury or the public will be told of the terms of the settlement today,” Gering said.

Today’s settlement comes after the jury was sent home Tuesday morning because of what Gering called a “major legal issue” that came up after court adjourned following Monday’s testimony. BPI Attorney Dan Webb said the settlement vindicated the company’s lean finely textured beef product that Avila and ABC News reports had referred to as “pink slime.”

“We are extraordinarily pleased with this settlement,” Webb said. “It’s been a long road for BPI, but it is a road that was necessary…in order to rectify the harm that was caused by what we believe to be baseless and biased reporting that occurred in 2012.”

Webb told reporters the settlement also affirmed the quality of BPI’s beef product.

“We have established that this product is beef, it’s nutritious, it’s safe and it should be a component of ground beef,” Webb said. “And, by having this trial and getting this settlement, we are convinced that now the company — with this behind them — can go forward, can grow the business.”

BPI’s founder and CEO Eldon Roth declined to comment, but ABC Reporter Jim Avila spoke with the media after the settlement was announced.

“I think it’s important to note that we are not retracting anything and we are not apologizing for anything,” Avila said. “And I also want people to understand that I understand that it was a business decision and I support my company. And that is all I can say at this time.”

Avila added that he will return to work for ABC News next week. He had been in court every day for the three and a half weeks of the trial in Union County district Court in Elk Point.

Court was only in session for two and a half minutes when Judge Cheryle Gering announced to the jury testimony would be delayed until Wednesday.

Judge Gering told the jury that a “major legal issue” arose last night as she worked with the lawyers and they were not able to resolve the issue, so the jurors would be going home for the day.

The judge did not specify what that legal issue was or give a further explanation. A member of ABC’s legal team mentioned that this type of thing is common in a trial like this, considering this lawsuit involves nearly $2 billion.

Court is expected to resume Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. The trial is being held in Union County District Court in Elk Point, South Dakota.

The Iowa-based World Food Prize will be presented this year to a man who’s credited with expanding food production in Nigeria and transforming African agriculture.

World Food Prize President Kenneth Quinn revealed the prize’s 46th laureate today at a ceremony in Washington D.C.

Akinwumi Adesina is the current President of the African Development Bank. Earlier in his career, Adesina served as Vice President of AGRA.

Quinn said, during Adesina’s tenure with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Adesina led an effort to increase the availability of credit for farmers across the continent. From 2011 to 2015, Adesina was Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and he launched the E-Wallet system — providing farmers with vouchers redeemable for inputs using mobile phones.

Akinwumi Adesina

“Which broke the back of corrupt elements that had controlled the fertilizer distribution system for 40 years,” Quinn said. “That, and other reforms he implemented, increased food production by 21-million metric tons and led to and attracted $5.6 billion in private sector investments that earned him the reputation as ‘the farmer’s minister.'” The 57-year-old Adesina will be honored on October 19 with a ceremony at the Iowa State Capitol.

“His receiving the World Food Prize will give impetus in the coming decade to his profound vision for enhancing nutrition, eliminating childhood stunting, uplifting smallholder farmers, empowering women, and inspiring the next generation of young Africans,” Quinn said. Adesina will be the sixth African to be awarded the World Food Prize – which was founded in 1986 by Cresco, Iowa native Norman Borlaug.

Quinn noted that 2002 World Food Prize laureate Pedro Sanchez has called Adesina “Africa’s Norman Borlaug.” Borlaug, who died in 2009 at the age of 95, has been called “the father of the Green Revolution” and is credited with saving a billion lives from starvation by developing high-yielding wheat varieties. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.